An Analysis of Gold
by Madhumalati
Summary: Set after Gunlock. Goku thinks about the colour gold, and Sanzo tries not to react. Shounenai, 39, oneshot.


A/N: This fic is dedicated to Eyes of Shinigami; thanks for the stories and the reviews!

Tiny little spoiler for Gunlock, by the way. Nothing important, though.

_**An analysis of gold**_

It was hard to tear away the images of those zombies from his mind, afterwards. The way they had looked, blank and empty but still somehow filled with hatred; someone else's hatred, but no less powerful for that. It woke a strange rage inside him. He had never hated. He doubted he was capable of it, never mind his bloodthirsty other self. That hollow gold haunted him, in uneasy dreams of death and destruction, vague, like blurry pictures, but emotionally exhausting. He knew he was overreacting, because everyone else seemed just fine, but those eyes had touched some reservoir of horror deep within, and now everything hidden there bubbled inexorably up to the surface.

Heretic. Freak of nature, in more ways than one. Great Sage Equal to Heaven – he had been called that too, and in his mind it was the most damning of the phrases, because what heaven would grant another power equal to it, and so he must be……wrong somehow, golden eyes, unnatural and glowing.

They weren't glowing much anymore.

So he fixed his eyes – ugly eyes, unnatural eyes – on a different gold. Not the sun, because the sun was of heaven and perhaps he shouldn't look up there, or he'd be blinded, wouldn't he?

Sanzo had never understood. His hair glowed like the sun, true, but that wasn't what made Goku call him the sun.

Hakkai had called it gravity; the force that attracted things towards each other. Or something like it. He said that everything had gravity, but it was only noticeable in big things like planets and stars. That wasn't quite right, he knew; maybe people had gravity too, only it was different because only some people could feel it. Sanzo had gravity, and it attracted Goku. And Hakkai and Gojyo too; they all drew each other. But Sanzo was…….Sanzo was……different.

Goku had assigned them their roles; Sanzo the sun, because he was the earth. The earth moved around the sun, the sun sustained the earth. This was truth, and this was them, so it was inevitable that Sanzo was the sun. And no matter how much Sanzo hit him and swore at him and pushed him away, they were bound steadily tighter by that invisible thread that wound around and through them and seemed connected somehow by that strange burning in him that Sanzo caused.

The sun wasn't his hair. It was something within him, a sort of immediate recognition. Sanzo was the sun, he'd be the sun even when he was old and bald, although Goku had a hard time imagining that. It was just hair, hair like his own, but a prettier colour, so Goku fixed his eyes on that gold and let everything else go. Forgot that he was unnatural, forgot the way people from those zombie villages looked at him – youkai, heretic, freak – and let it sweep his memories away.

Maybe it would even go away for good someday.

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Contrary to most people's opinion, Sanzo's mind is very simple. Not simple in terms of thought or emotion, but simple because he believes that most things mean nothing and a few things mean everything, and once he has stripped everything down to action, reaction, goal, consequence and price, everything seems terribly easy to choose, really. It is not surprising that he is not easily affected by hatred, revenge, control; these are things he has lived with. He knows how the need for vengeance can burn in the stomach, how anger can choke a throat and twist words before they leave the mouth.

Goku doesn't.

He can feel the boy behind him, through the soft leather-covered cushion of the front seat, a welter of confusion raging in that small space of shared mind inside his head. Too many things to define, but he can see the complete picture. He can't sense Goku's emotions, but in some perverse reversal Goku's thoughts are screamingly loud in his head, volume substituting for definition. No matter how silent he is, or how loud, or how hard he tries to distract himself, that voice is always there. In the car, dozing, reading his newspaper, even in battle. Sometimes it's so noisy that he finds himself shouting at Goku for no apparent reason, hitting him, cursing him; at meals, for example, when his brain gets stuck on _eateateateateateateateat_ until Sanzo can't stand the sight of food anymore. He's been getting thinner since he met Goku, and he can only blame the monkey for it.

Right now he's depressed. Sanzo could probably pick it up, but he doesn't have to. He knows. Ever since that Hazel and his resurrections, Goku's mind has been one short loop of thoughts _golden eyes-unnatural-can't-please-won't-why-too strong-not human-Sanzo-gold-sun-hair-gold-Sanzo, Sanzo, Sanzo-sun-please-golden eyes-unnatural_ and on and on until he wants to scream, wants to swear, wants to reach over and hit him harder than he's ever hit anything in his life, wants to hold him tight and never ever let go – and so he slouches down a little further in his seat and sighs so softly even Hakkai's sharp ears don't pick it up.

Irrational, stupid, immature. There's a difference between being unique and being unnatural. He should know that it's completely irrelevant, that colour is just colour, red is just red and gold is just gold; should know not to read too many meanings into things because they have Hakkai to do this overanalysis shit; should know that whatever he is, he is, and what difference does it make, because it's _who_ he is that matters, what he does, not what he is made of that defines him. But it's not something Sanzo can tell him, it's something he has to discover for himself, because knowledge gained without pain and the thrill of discovery is superficial. And until then he can only wait, and wait, and wait, patient and angry, despairing and poised to swoop down on that spark the minute it appears.

He knows every shade of gold there is. In the sky, on the earth, in the corner of his vision when his hair is wet; but this gold is closest, most deeply entwined, no matter how he struggles and thrashes like a fish in the net, because although Sanzo prides himself on being a survivor, on being the one who always, always triumphs, it is very hard to win a battle that he wants so badly to lose. It is harder to pretend that he isn't in love with someone when that someone can read his emotions, but Sanzo does, and will. It is hardest of all to do it when he knows for sure that Goku loves him too, but he is frozen in stasis, unable to push through, because the next move isn't his and he's trapped, by his past and his nature, and the only one he can allow to free him is painfully uncertain that he wants to be freed, that Sanzo needs him as badly as he is needed. As open as he is closed, as passionate as he is cold, the ultimate contrast, the emotion behind those golden eyes is the only thing that can goad him and force him and inspire him to live.

The one who understands emptiness; the opposite of emptiness, drawn to it.

How cruelly appropriate.

Sanzo would laugh, but he cannot, and so he closes his eyes and lights up a cigarette and lets the world fall away in flame.

A/N: so there it is; my first effort to capture the elusive Sanzo on paper. Hope it works.


End file.
